


Harvest

by Stadi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Memories, Reconciliation, missing chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stadi/pseuds/Stadi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Twenty-Four-and-a-Half. A missing chapter set between Sirius’s sullen Christmas and his joyful conversation with Lupin and Harry about Snape’s memory. Sirius reflects, remembers, regrets, and rages - and then Remus surprises him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harvest

When Remus returned from seeing Harry, Hermione and the four young Weasleys off to Hogwarts, Sirius was alone in the house at Grimmauld Place. Except, he supposed, for Kreacher, reliving who knew what twisted, servile memories with his shattered, salvaged photographs in the den off the kitchen. He was leaning heavily on the sink in one of the upstairs bathrooms, staring at his deteriorated reflection. The mirror sported an intricate series of cracks, courtesy of the rather forceful punch he had just delivered it – perhaps moments before; perhaps hours. He heard the door close, and heard the familiar, shuffling footsteps grow nearer and louder as Remus climbed the stairs. When they began to echo through the hall outside the bathroom Sirius gave himself a vigourous shake, an echo of Padfoot in stormy weather, and he gripped the edges of the sink more tightly, willing his breathing to slow and his eyes to clear. He didn’t want Remus to know he had been crying.

Indeed, part of him didn’t want to see Remus at all; wanted instead to close the door, barricade it, and never have to look into his eyes again. Sirius had clung to the memory of those eyes, during all his years in Azkaban. The way they could shine with love, flash with anger, well up with joy or pain. He remembered mocking Remus, in happier days, for the ways his eyes so easily betrayed him – at least to those who cared to look beneath his careful, cultivated calm. But he seemed to have taken such mockery very much to heart in intervening years, for now it was like a valve had been very carefully sealed behind those eyes, and he could see nothing in Remus’ gaze but cautious, controlled civility. And it broke his heart a little more each time he looked.

He had not known what to expect upon meeting Remus again after his escape; there had been no time to expect anything, so occupied – so obsessed – had he become with finding Peter, stopping him, killing him… But later, as he and Buckbeak made their hasty exit, Sirius had looked back at the castle and felt an irrational, irrepressible desire to turn back. It was only the thought of Peter returning to Voldemort’s side, the thought that he had to stay free to prevent any more innocent lives being taken by the cowardice and greed of that snivelling little _worm_ , which had stopped him. Prevented him from flying back to the castle and throwing himself at Remus’s feet, and begging forgiveness. Forgiveness for being so stupid, so reckless, so blindly vengeful as to sacrifice everything they had had left after James and Lily were gone.

***

Oh, how clearly Sirius remembered that night, the night that had changed all their lives – every frantic, idiotic moment of it. How he had gone to check on Peter and found the safehouse empty; how he had arrived home and found Remus, white and shaking by the fire, telling him Dumbledore had been and that something was happening, James and Lily were in danger; how at Remus’s insistence that they follow Dumbledore’s instructions and stay put, Sirius had snarled a wordless objection, caught up his wand, and run out of the flat, leapt on his bike, and left. Without a last touch, a last kiss – without a single intelligible word of explanation or farewell, he had left, not knowing that this would be the last they would see of each other for thirteen years. 

He had arrived at Godric’s Hollow to find that not only was the cottage visible, the spell broken, but that it was little more than a smouldering ruin. He had brought the bike to a screeching halt. Hagrid, who was already on the scene, had jumped out of his skin, almost dropping tiny Harry. Sirius had demanded his godson be handed over, and Hagrid had said no, Dumbledore’s orders were to take him to Little Whinging, to Lily’s horrible, Muggle sister – a gentleness in his voice as though he thought this news would be a _comfort_. Sirius had reacted on instinct, hurling the bike at Hargrid’s feet, saying to take it, too. He had Apparated home once more, and nearly embedded himself in the kitchen table in his rage. 

The flat had been empty, and now, of course, he knew why. Remus must have been with Dumbledore, or someone else from the Order. He must have at that very moment been being told that Sirius, whom all believed to be the secret keeper, had betrayed them. That Lily and James were dead. That even in the midst of the first signs of the Dark Lord’s demise, Remus’s life, as he knew it, was over. Remus’s eyes must have welled with tears as McGonnagall or some other senior Order member pressed a cup of tea into his shaking hands – welled with tears and then slowly faded into the dull orbs Sirius had barely recognized across the dinner table so many times since June. 

Over the years this imagined memory, so clear, so piercing, had sent Sirius into his own fits of silent, strained weeping. And it had only gotten worse since their reunion. He would wake in the night, gasping for breath, and be reminded all over again each time that all that pain in the eyes of the young Remus of his nightmares, and every line and shadow accumulated by his face since, were entirely and unavoidably Sirius’s fault.

Now, he could see this so very clearly. But that night, arriving back at their tiny flat, he had not even noticed that Remus was gone. His only thought was for the map, the new one, the one that he and Remus had been building for the Order: not just of Hogwarts but instead of all of London, expanding every day as they pored over it, into the suburbs and out through the countryside. He had snatched it from the invisible compartment on the table’s underside and spent what had felt like days scanning it until he had found the small, moving dot he was looking for. He had Apparated once more, and as clear as the rest of the night was in his memory these many years later – Peter’s empty bed, Remus pale and shaking, Godric’s Hollow aflame – what happened next had always been a blur. 

One moment he had been standing in the middle of a street; he had spotted Peter, had bolted toward him and trapped him against a wall, his wand out; Peter had shouted something to the gathering crowd and there had been a terrible flash of light and a sound of rushing air, a vacuum being filled. The map had ignited in Sirius’s clenched fist, burnt to cinders in an instant. Then the smoke had cleared and he had found himself surrounded by Aurors, Stupefied before he could open his mouth. And the next time he’d awoken, it had been in Azkaban. 

He had drifted in and out of consciousness for days after that, adjusting to the terrible presence of the Dementors, and when he had finally come to fully, it was with a horrible weight on his chest. His best friends were dead, their small son in the dubious care of the worst sort of Muggles. And Remus. Remus, the one person who had ever really loved him, now thought him a traitor and a murderer. An impression that he had had every opportunity to prevent, and which would now stand, unchallenged, forever.

Sirius had thought that nothing could be worse than the terrible regret of those long and lonely years in prison. But the excruciating silence, the polite pass-the-salt-won’t-you-thanks-so-much _avoidance_ of these last six months with Remus had proven him wrong. When Dumbledore had told him to lie low at Remus’s after Harry’s terrible ordeal at the Triwizard Tournament, Sirius’ heart had leapt, even as he raged on Harry’s behalf, on everyone’s behalf, at Voldemort’s sudden return. 

Finally, an order of Dumbledore’s with which he could comply wholeheartedly. Finally, he would be able to explain, able to put things right. He would look into Remus’s eyes once more and find some kind of hope, some way to make all the long, dark years since they were last together into nothing more than a terrible, fading nightmare. But when they had come face to face again, for the first time since his recapture and frantic escape astride Buckbeak, his heart had sunk. The stiff formality of Remus’s handshake, the awkward way in which he made up the sofa for Sirius and retreated into his room, had been such a shock that Sirius was lost for words; and having squandered that first vital opportunity to speak freely, he had not been able to do so since. 

Instead he had imitated Remus’s manner as best he could. They had settled into a cautious routine of calculated friendliness. Buying Harry a Christmas present together, rolling their eyes at Kreacher’s loud and fractured raving – so absolute a routine that Sirius could, much of the time, almost believe that he had imagined the joy in Remus’s face that night in the Shrieking Shack when the truth had come out. He could almost convince himself that their years together at Hogwarts and afterwards were the real dream, and this empty life, this empty house, punctuated only by Harry’s visits and the battles ahead, was reality now.

Almost. But then there were days like today. _Snivellus_. Sneering down his broomhandle of a nose at Harry as though he were beneath him, as though he was of less value than that dirty, cowardly turncoat… And Harry, so good, so like his father, standing between them, trying to protect Sirius from his own stupidity, just as James and Remus had always done. And Sirius was now so emotionally stunted, between prison and this cold, unreal life with this cold, unreal Remus, that when he had groped for a way to express the wellspring of affection for Harry bursting within him, he had come back only with a rough shove and a vague remonstration, focusing instead on his hatred of Snape – the easier, more familiar outlet. 

Afterwards, when Snape was gone and the elder Weasleys had left and the children were filing out the door, Sirius had been overwhelmed yet again, this time with a bleak despair, as he watched Remus disappear out into the sun and watched the door slam behind him, plunging Sirius into the gloom of this hateful house once more. Despair, because at times like these – when memories of James came flooding back and he felt so helpless, so hopeless at being what Harry needed, at making the boy understand how much he was loved – at times like these Sirius wanted more than anything to throw himself into Remus’s arms and be comforted. Be told what to do, and how to behave… Even to be reprimanded, mocked for his quick and indiscriminate temper – a shortcoming whose history, as the warm, playful Remus of Sirius’ memories would have reminded him, stretched back far before his time in Azkaban. 

And he would think about Remus now, and how unlikely it was that anything more meaningful than a saltshaker would ever pass between them again, and his loneliness, and his worries about Harry, and his ever-present feelings of _uselessness_ would all rear up at once and something – today, the mirror – would become the pointless object of his frustrated passions.

Not that he blamed Remus, Sirius thought, tracing the cracks in the glass before him with his eyes as he tried to ignore the sounds of Remus making tea in the second-floor drawing room. Not one iota. Thirteen years – nearly fifteen now – was a very long time. Sirius knew that better than most. To spend most of that time believing the man you loved to be a traitor, a madman, a murderer; Sirius could hardly imagine how he himself would react, had their roles been reversed. And what was more, in his most lucid moments, Sirius had to admit to himself that his own memories of life before Azkaban – apart from the hideous clarity of his last night as a free man – were splintered and vague in parts. The intensity of his feelings toward Remus may very well have been exaggerated by all their time apart, not least by these past months, spent in the same house but farther away from each other than they had been when Sirius was behind bars in the middle of the ocean. 

Perhaps Remus’s stony silences and steady, detached gaze were not avoidance at all, but acceptance. Acceptance of Sirius’ presence because it was on Dumbledore’s orders, but acceptance with nothing lurking beneath it. Remus had been out here in the world, after all, for those thirteen years; perhaps he had dealt with his grief already and put it away. Perhaps he was no longer the man who had held Sirius long into so many nights during the last war, freely offering whispered words of love and comfort and calm. Perhaps – and at this thought, Sirius choked on another rough sob, trying to strangle it before it travelled down the hall – perhaps the entire thing had been nothing; not love at all but an adolescent phase, which he had become rooted in thanks to his imprisonment, but which Remus had passed through and moved on from, quickly and painlessly. Perhaps Sirius was simply giving himself too much credit for the lines and the pain in Remus’s prematurely aged face; after all, living as a werewolf, drifting from job to job, and now fighting with the Order once more, would be quite enough to do that to a person, wouldn’t it?

And that, really, was the most painful thought of all. That Remus simply didn’t care. That he wasn’t holding himself back, because there was nothing _to_ hold back. Being back here, in his parents’ house, among the dusty relics of their fanaticism, the dirt and Doxy droppings doing little to mask the familiar, oppressive smells of his father’s clothes, his mother’s perfume… in some ways being back here erased all the years in between. Sirius felt fifteen again, and as he drifted from room to room he found himself reliving memories of being condemned: for his friends, for his House, for his sense of right and wrong. 

Yet painful as they were, Sirius found these memories preferable to the present. For in those days, Remus had been a ray of light in this gloomy place without ever stepping through the door. Sirius had never been so daft as to broach the subject of having a werewolf, and a poor one at that, as a friend and later a lover – much as there were days that he had dearly wanted to hurl such news into his mother’s smug, self-righteous face. But he had carried the memory of Remus home with him every holiday. His good and peaceful nature, so at odds with the Blacks’ pureblood hysteria; his ill-fitting sweaters and inkstained fingers, so much more _human_ than Mr Black’s pressed robes and Mrs Black’s shellacked updo; and his eager, sloppy kisses, the warmth of his slight body wrapped around Sirius’s, a physical manifestation of the kind of love whose absence lent this house its year-round chill. 

James had been his brother, in fact if not in name, Lily his sister, the elder Potters the kind and understanding parents he had never had. And Remus had been his anchor to all of that. Every holiday at home Sirius had realized anew that he had fallen in love with Remus because he was everything that was missing from his own life; and, he often suspected, from his own character. Remus had brought out the best in Sirius – made him think twice, even if sometimes he acted anyway. He had been the one that Sirius could protect and care for, and in doing so feel as though he was somehow earning all of this unexpected love. Somehow proving himself to be worthy of this adopted hodgepodge of a family he had been cheated out of by birth, but blessed with anyway through some serendipitous twist of fate and friendship.     

But when Peter, who had seemed so harmless, but had turned out to be even more dangerous than the Blacks themselves, was through with them, everyone was gone…

He had, if he was honest with himself, used Peter – it was so easy, since he never fought back, to allow him to be the one on whom the Black in Sirius could unleash itself. Peter had worn on his sleeve so many of the same pathetic weaknesses that Sirius felt but would never be caught dead displaying – Sirius couldn’t help but hate him, as he hated himself. For being weak, for being needy, for being so transparently fueled by the desire to be included, liked, loved. For those were the desires that ruled Sirius’s every action, then and now. Peter’s betrayal had stung all the more because Sirius also knew that _that_ kind of weakness lived in him, too.

And so he had fought, had stayed alive, had escaped the inescapable. He had been so sure that since Peter was the cause, his removal would be the cure, like a cancer culled away to reveal the healthy bone beneath.

But he had failed. Twice. And then something amazing had happened. He had finally stopped, finally thought, and decided that this time he would go about things differently. That instead of indulging in rash impulses, flailing about fists first, he would stop and think and follow orders, and do everything he could to hold onto, to somehow repair, the last love left in his life. But then he had come back to _this_ Remus; the one who didn’t care anymore. The only person left whose love and respect had kept Sirius from deeming himself completely worthless now treated him with such distance, such arm’s length tact. He could feel the safety and happiness of those years of belonging fading like a dream – and the more he grasped at those memories, those feelings, the more they eluded him.

And that was where the difference lay. That was when all of the years between then and now came rushing back and he suddenly felt incalculably old, and unbearably alone – because having Remus here at long last was nothing like Sirius had hoped it would be. Where the mere memory of Remus at sixteen had been able to bring light to the gloomiest corners of Grimmauld Place, his actual presence in the house these many years later was a constant reminder that this time there would be no schooltime reprieve, no daring escape. In those days his parents had been the jailors. But now Sirius had forged his own chains, and there was no way out because there was nowhere to go – Remus was already here, and lost for good, just like the rest of them.

Perhaps, if it was only himself, he could go on like this. He could give himself to the fight once more and try his best to forget how things once had been. But it wasn’t just him. James, Lily, Mr and Mrs Potter, and the Remus of his memories – they had loved Sirius, he knew that, as much as he didn’t understand it. But more than him, they had loved Harry – and they had left Harry in his charge. And never having understood or felt worthy of their love, he was at a loss, now, to recreate it for his godson. Now, as he selfishly struggled with rejection, with hopelessness; as he tried to face up to the fact that Remus, brave, tender, beautiful Remus, didn’t need him, didn’t love him – maybe never had… As he dealt with all of this, it fell to him to be Harry’s family. 

Harry, so very like James, leading his friends in rebellion against the Ministry, doing what was necessary no matter how difficult. It was easy, as Molly had so pointedly observed, for Sirius to pretend that he was James – easy because then there was someone else to turn to, someone who cared that Sirius was innocent; who respected what he’d been through; who treated him like family. 

Easy… but not right. He knew he wasn’t handling this right. It wasn’t his place to lean on Harry. He was supposed to be responsible for the boy, not be a burden to him. He didn’t want to treat him like James; he wanted to treat him like James _would_. He wanted to be the family that Harry deserved. It wasn’t fair, that Sirius had gotten the benefit of all that love, wasted on him when it should have been given to Harry. He was so tired of trying to pull himself together; so tired of trying to figure out how to be what Harry needed. 

He had only ever been good when there were people around him who made feel as though he could be good. On his own he was just Sirius Black, pigheaded, angry, undeserving. He was lost, and alone, and incapable of picking up this mess.

***

Remus’s footsteps had begun to echo through the hall again; quite close now; and closer; and then they stopped. Sirius chanced a glance up into the broken mirror and saw Remus standing behind him, those dreadfully neutral eyes gazing steadily into his own. He flicked his gaze back down toward the sink, watching as a drop of blood from his battered knuckles dropped into the basin and wound its way down the drain. Abruptly, Remus’s voice cut through the silence, its tone as carefully disinterested as his eyes.

“That mirror was in one piece this morning, wasn’t it, Pads?”

Sirius did not look up. At first he merely cursed himself for standing there so long without repairing the mirror; for not shutting the door when he’d had the impulse to.

Then, for a moment, he felt a towering, overwhelming wave of anger – at Remus’s presumption. Such a casual inquiry, as though he couldn’t imagine why Sirius would be upset. Sirius’s bloody fist clenched even more tightly against the basin, and he was sure that the pressure alone would be enough to raise a bruise. 

But as suddenly as it had reared its head, the anger ebbed away. He could see the room, and the two of them in it, as clearly as if he were not staring fixedly into the sink – and an unexpected sensation of freedom washed over him. Remus was already here; he had already seen. It was too late to hide the physical evidence of his rage and confusion; and it was too late for Remus to pretend he hadn’t noticed. The cracks in the mirror had spread to the wall between them, and now there was nothing left to lose. Sirius relaxed his grip on the sink, exhaled, and allowed the words to come tumbling out. 

“I just…I just wish I could talk to him the way James would. I wish I could be sure that he knows…that he knows how much I – ” 

He paused, chancing another glance up at Remus’s reflection, and was taken aback to see the faintest trace of moisture in his eyes. He lowered his own eyes once more and pushed ahead resolutely: “ – how much _we_ …care about him,” Sirius finished lamely, but with a sense of relief at finally having unburdened himself even that small amount. 

It would have been enough for him, to have said this small piece, and to have gotten this small reaction out of Remus. To have communicated, however poorly, his wish that he could be some sort of family to Harry; and his madder wish that he and Remus could somehow take on that role together. 

It would have been enough, had Remus not taken a step towards him as he had spoken; would have been enough, were he not now reaching out a hand whose movement Sirius could see in his periphery, reflected in the mirror, and touching the back of Sirius’s head, smoothing down his disheveled hair. 

For one hysterical moment Sirius thought that perhaps a stray Doxy or Puffskein had wedged itself into his tangled locks without his knowledge, and Remus was merely dislodging it. But then the hand lifted, and then landed once more and slid along the back of his head and his neck. He realized with a jolt, like the bottom of his stomach giving way, that Remus was _stroking_ him, gently, but firmly; Remus was trying to _comfort_ him. And without allowing himself to think things through any further he surrendered to the instincts he’d been fighting for six months, and relaxed into Remus’s touch. 

He closed his eyes tightly, willing this moment to last, and as he drank in the rhythmic movements of Remus’s long fingers through his hair, the gentle pressure on his scalp, a sudden flash of memory came over him.

_It had been a sweltering spring day in their seventh year. He had been banned from the last Hogsmeade visit of term for some infraction or other – dungbombs, perhaps, or running through the castle corridors wearing Samantha McConnell’s brassiere as a bonnet... At any rate, this prohibition had meant, of course, that he had gone anyway – as Padfoot. He had met Remus on the hill by the Shrieking Shack, and they had sat there until the sun began to set, Remus stroking Padfoot’s thick fur and murmuring his concerns about the mounting spate of deaths and disappearances; his desire to help, to fight; and his happiness at having Sirius by his side as they prepared to step out into the ever-more-uncertain world beyond Hogwarts._

For a long moment, Sirius could almost believe that he was back there, on that hill, before any of the terror and confusion and loneliness of the intervening years. But then a drop of water escaped the tap and fell into the drain with a loud, echoing plunk, and he was brought back to the present as Remus’s hand stilled, but did not disengage, resting lightly on his shoulder. 

Sirius took another deep, ragged breath. _In for a sickle…_ The wall was crumbling now, and though he didn’t dare look up again into Remus’s eyes – too afraid of what he might find there, more afraid of what he might _not_ find – this small, light contact and the happy memory it had unearthed, too vivid to be dismissed as wishful thinking, were enough to be the push he needed. Before he realized what he was doing, in another rush of instinct that reminded him horribly of the night’s work which had led them here, he pressed on, a stream of speech longer than any he could remember uttering since Azkaban escaping his lips.

“I stayed sane in there for you,” he began. Startled by the hoarseness of his voice, he cleared his throat, but continued to speak in little more than a ragged whisper. “I saw Peter in the _Prophet_ , but I never would have left… never would have made it out if I hadn’t been thinking of you. I saw your appointment to the Hogwarts staff in that same paper Fudge gave me. That meant Peter would be near you… he’d be able to – and that’s when I left. I wanted to save Harry, I wanted to stop Peter, I wanted to clear my name…but I wouldn’t have been able to shake myself loose from that place if I hadn’t realized that Peter might get to you before you knew that I hadn’t... that I wasn’t the one who betrayed us. 

“I told Harry that it was the thought of my innocence that kept me from going mad; an unhappy thought, one the Dementors couldn’t take… the thought that you blamed me, that you believed I had – had _killed_ them…” 

He stopped, and took another breath, and suddenly his anger at Remus’s indifference swelled once more. His voice rose, the croak in it clearing. 

“And now we’re here, we’ve been here for months, and you know but you don’t care. And I want to _talk_ to you, Moony, but I don’t know how. I don’t even know if you want me to. And sometimes I hate you so much for pretending that everything’s fine, that there’s nothing we need to talk about – nothing we need…” His voice quavered and broke, and he took a deep breath and a different tact as he continued. 

“And then on the other hand I don’t blame you at all, because why _would_ you want to talk to me. I am a mess, and I ruined everything the night James and Lily… everything we had… 

“It’s like yesterday to me, but you’ve lived a lifetime since then.”

Sirius stopped talking as suddenly as he’d begun, and as silence settled in around them once more he realized that Remus’s grip on his shoulder had tightened, and that everything had gone dark – this last, he realized, because he had screwed his eyes tightly shut against the rush of emotions that finally speaking, after all this time, had stirred up. Then the silence was broken once more, by Remus’s voice, its soft, cultivated timbre no longer even, but shaking with emotion.

“I stayed sane out here for you as well, you know.” 

Sirius lifted his head, opening his eyes and staring into the mirror at Remus, incredulous. There was a strange, heavy-lidded look to his eyes, but nonetheless he was offering words sweeter than Sirius had ever dared to hope for, especially after bunging up so badly the explanation he had been saving for nearly two years. 

But as Remus continued, a rough rasp in his voice now, Sirius’s heart sank. 

“I stayed sane… I stayed alive, I made sure I got through every moon, however bad they got, so that I would be whole and strong enough – to kill you.”

At the look of unadulterated shock that Sirius knew must be spreading across his own face, Remus continued, smiling grimly, his reflection grotesquely distorted. He continued to grip Sirius’s shoulder tightly, still staring into his eyes in the mirror, his voice regaining some of its even tone. 

“Come on, Sirius. I spent over a decade studying the Dark Arts in their every shape and form. I did not do that just for the privilege of teaching alongside Snape. I did it so that when you got out – because I knew that if anyone could, it was you – so that when you got out, I could give you what was coming to you. Could betray you just as thoroughly as…” 

He trailed off, a dark expression which Sirius could not interpret crossing his lined face. When he spoke again it was in a whisper so strained, so ragged with suppressed emotion that Sirius felt his hands beginning to shake against the sink. 

“If Harry hadn’t had the map…I don’t know what would have happened that night. I don’t know – what I would have done.”    

Remus was quiet again, and perfectly still. He did not release Sirius’s shoulder, nor did he look away from him in the mirror. His eyes, Sirius saw now, were more than just moist with tears – they were suddenly more wildly _alive_ than Sirius had seen them since that night in the Shrieking Shack when they had faced Peter, and Harry, together at last. There was a mad spark dancing in them, an almost dangerous gleam, and Sirius could not tell if it was a light born of relief, or grief, or anger, or some mingling of all three. 

Sirius opened his mouth to speak, but never got the opportunity to discover what he might have said. For, suddenly, their eye contact was broken, as Remus wrenched Sirius violently backward with the hand that was still on his shoulder, throwing him against the open door and rounding on him. 

For a long, quiet moment, as he looked down into Remus’s wild eyes, Sirius was certain that he was facing the moment of his death – and found himself remarkably unconcerned. _It’s no more than I deserve, after all_ , he thought, and he closed his eyes, bracing himself, wondering idly how it would happen… 

Then suddenly, he felt Remus’s mouth, pressing against his own. Remus’s hands tore at his robes, and as Sirius’s eyes flew open he could see that the other man’s face was contorted with what looked like pain. A low, wolfish growl was rising from Remus’s throat.  
Sirius felt as though he’d been Stupefied, and was motionless in the face of this torrent of movement, the tension and anger and panic of a few moments before rising within him again. 

Then came a loud tear, which echoed around the bathroom: Remus had ripped his robes open at the seams. And as he felt those long, rough fingers on his skin, this time sliding across his chest, along his stomach, around to clutch at his shoulders again, Sirius remembered with a start that this was what he had been waiting for, longing for, since the moment he had woken up in his dark prison cell and realized what he had done. It was as though the world was righting itself from the crazed angle at which it had been standing all these long years. With a long, loud, shuddering sigh against Remus’s mouth, Sirius relaxed once more, and did what he had always done best – surrendered to instinct. 

He leaned into the kiss, opening his dry, cracked lips to Remus’s as he slid his hands beneath Remus’s robes. He tried to be gentle, undoing the clasp at his throat, unbuttoning the shirt beneath. He ran his hands along the scars on Remus’s stomach and chest, frowning slightly as he realized that while some of them were familiar, others seemed not only new but also deeper than he would have expected, as though the wolf had been tearing at its own flesh with abandon. 

He tried to move slowly, but the brush of his fingers against the scars seemed only to spur Remus on in his mad scramble to be rid of Sirius’s robes, and Sirius found himself being pushed and pulled out into the hallway. There was a frightening moment as Remus pressed him backwards over the low third-storey banister; Sirius could feel his raw, bloody knuckles burning as he clutched Remus’s shoulders in a effort not to plunge toward the foyer below, his torn robes streaming out behind him into empty air. 

As Remus sank his lips and teeth into Sirius’s neck, guttural sounds erupting from him, Sirius pushed Remus’s heavily mended robes the rest of the way off, letting them fall to the floor, and sliding his hands down the werewolf’s scar-strewn back and beneath the loose trousers hanging from his thin waist. Remus stiffened at his touch and there was another flurry of motion – Sirius found himself seized about his own waist with a burst of full-moon strength and thrown bodily once more, this time against the doorframe of the room just past the bathroom. Panting heavily, Remus discarded what was left of Sirius’s robes, tearing them off his shoulders in one swift movement, and pulled Sirius into the room, flinging him towards the bed. 

Sirius barely had time to register the shock of the cold sheets on his back before he found himself covered in a warm and familiar weight. Feeling more at home in his own skin than he had in fifteen years, every inch of it singing, he slid his arms around Remus’s waist and pulled him closer. 

But as he looked up into Remus’s eyes he found that the mad hunger had drained out of them, leaving only tears behind; he found, now that the pace had abated, that he could feel the muscles of Remus’s back quaking under his hands. 

He realized with a start that Remus was shaking uncontrollably, all over, as though overcome with cold. Remus averted his eyes, staring instead down at his own trembling hand, intently, almost curiously, as though it was swiping back and forth across Sirius’s chest of its own accord. Remus looked up again, and as Sirius peered into his face he found that the tears brimming in Remus’s eyes were now running silently down his cheeks. 

Uncomprehending, but wanting desperately to spare Remus any further pain, Sirius reached up gently and brushed a tear away from the tip of his long nose with the pad of his thumb. It seemed that this touch, so incidental compared to the contact still burning between their bare chests and arms, was too much for Remus, and all of a sudden a terrible, ragged howl escaped him, so like the cry of the wolf. He began to sob, and then to retch, and when Sirius finally began to be able to make out words between Remus’s gasps he found, to his utter amazement, that they were words of apology.

“It w-was m-my fau-lt… en-t-t-irely m-m-m-my fault…I d-didn’t _believe_ you…how c-could I have lef-left- _left_ you in there to r-r-rot-t…” 

Another piercing howl escaped him, and Sirius marveled again at how much power there was in Remus’s slim form. He gripped Remus’s shoulders, but could find nothing more to say than a soft, “Shhh…” as the other man took another ragged breath and let fly another stream of halting words.

“P-p-peter… of _course_ it w-was him… you would never h-h-have… James and L-l-il-y… it was m-m-me, I didn’t-didn’t – I didn’t l-l-love you enough… if I hadn’t b-believed them, I c-c-c-could have…” 

Remus trailed off again into a renewed burst of retching sobs, and Sirius, gaping, suddenly realized why Remus had been so distant. Why he had tried so hard to pretend there was nothing, had never been anything between them. He had been afraid that _Sirius_ would not forgive _him_. 

Quelling a mad impulse to laugh out loud with relief, he shifted to sit up against the headboard. He slid one arm around Remus’ back and pulled him close, using his other hand to force the trembling neck to relax, bringing the still-shaking head to rest against Sirius’ shoulder. The warm liquid of Remus’s tears ran down his neck and across his chest. Shocked to find himself the one imparting such comfort, he began to speak, a rush of soft words, over the continuing sounds of Remus’s sobs and gasps.

“Of course it’s not your fault, it was never your fault, Remus… I was stupid. I left. I should have come back to you. I should have been there. I never blamed you… _never_ … I loved you, I love you, I never stopped loving you, Moonshine… I’ll never stop. Shhh…”

Remus gave another shuddering gasp, his breath raising the fine hairs along Sirius’s arm, before raising his head to look at Sirius once more. Sirius tried to give him an encouraging smile, and ran his hand across Remus’s forehead and down the side of his face. There was a long pause, the air around them suddenly as still as an indrawn breath. 

And then, as Sirius watched, it was as though a small, localized sun rose across Remus’s face, eradicating the lines and scars etched across it. Even the liberal streaks of grey in his hair seemed to fade away, and his eyes shone with some internal light. Sirius nearly forgot where he was, so overcome was he suddenly with another long-buried memory...

_They were fifteen, and it was late morning, and they were alone in their tower dormitory. For weeks Sirius had found himself idly cataloguing the contents of the suddenly, confusingly, tantalizing scent which hung mingled in the air around Remus: parchment, chocolate, damp wool, and another musky ingredient just out of reach. He had found his eyes following the sweeping, startlingly beautiful curve of Remus’s long, thin fingers as he waved his fork in the air, chiding James about his latest after-hours exploits – even as a quivering smile played at his shockingly kissable lips at the thought of Snape casting wildly about for an invisible assailant. He had found himself wanting to reach out and smooth his own fingers across the unexpectedly adorable creases that formed on Remus’s brow as he scratched the side of his pale, ink-smudged nose with his quill during one of their study periods, twinkling eyes tracing the lines of the library rafters as he groped for a way to explain the principles behind the shield charm in a way that Peter would understand._

_Most of all, Sirius had become painfully aware of Remus’s body, radiating heat beside him at mealtimes and on the common room floor; and of his answering blush each time he caught Sirius staring. He had not had the faintest idea why he had suddenly been entertaining such thoughts; it was not until much, much later that circumstances would provide him the leisure to dissect his own feelings. At the time all he had known was that he couldn’t keep his mind, or his eyes, off of Remus, and that something needed to be done before he failed the year._

_So Sirius had stayed behind that morning deliberately, sending James and Peter along to the Quidditch pitch without him, on the admittedly flimsy pretext of studying for their fast-approaching OWLs. Left to themselves both he and Remus had gone abruptly quiet, avoiding each other’s gaze; they’d begun to tidy, and had reached for the same red-and-gold striped tie on the window-ledge, each thinking it belonged to him. Their fingers had brushed each other and Sirius’s whole body had suddenly begun to hum, and as he straightened up and looked into Remus’s reddening face he could see every one of his eyelashes shining in the sunlight streaming through the window. Without hesitating, without thinking, as naturally as if he were taking a deep breath of cool, fresh forest air, he had closed the short distance between them, grasped Remus’s face gently in his hands, and kissed him..._

As Sirius refocused on the face before him, so bright now it was almost blinding, he suddenly realized where all the light was coming from – Remus was smiling. Smiling through the tears still sliding down his cheeks, smiling so widely it looked like his jaw might split in two, and his eyes… It was as though someone had set them on fire. The old familiar twinkle was working furiously, flaring up like an old oil lamp suddenly relit, trying to make up for lost time.

For a brief moment Sirius could discern a kaleidoscope of emotion swirling in the shining depths of those eyes: laughter, sadness, joy, regret, and, above all, a simple, unabashed love. The kind that had been missing from Sirius’s life before he had met Remus, and had left again the day they’d been torn apart – by fate, by Peter, by Sirius’s own monumental stupidity. 

But even as his fleeting, omniscient understanding of Remus’s feelings faded away, all of that was suddenly, miraculously past. As he gazed into the luminous face before him, Sirius couldn’t remember ever having seen anything so beautiful. He couldn’t help it: he grinned back, and as he did so he was surprised to feel tears of his own, sent skittering down the lines that creased his face. They stayed like that, forever, it seemed, until Remus blinked and let out one more ragged breath.

“I l-love you,” he said, his voice echoing through the stillness of the room. “Did I h-happen to mention that, b-before?” He exhaled again, easier now.    

“No,” whispered Sirius, and then, feeling foolish, but unable to stop himself, he added, “Thank you.”

Before he could blush too deeply, he found himself being kissed once more, gently this time, both their lips moist with tears; and then Remus pulled back, looked into his eyes again, and then settled his head back onto Sirius’s shoulder. His breathing slowed, and then a bit more, until its rhythm told Sirius that he was asleep. 

The trembling continued to subside. Sirius held him tightly, and buried his face in Remus’s thin hair, matted with sweat. For a moment, as he inhaled, he felt a sudden flash of Padfoot cross his mind, registering, with a soft animal growl of satisfaction, the familiar scent of the man in his arms: the cool and musky peat of a deep, moonlit forest. 

The effort of believing all of this was just too much; he was too tired; after all, he thought, his lids growing heavy and his thoughts getting sluggish, he hadn’t slept in fifteen years. He pulled the blankets across them against the cold that he could not feel but knew must be there. He closed his eyes, and, breathing deeply, followed Remus into sleep. 

***

In his dream, Sirius is working in a flourishing garden, wild-looking but lovingly tended. It’s spring, after a long, harsh winter, and the sun is beating down on his neck, raising beads of sweat that trickle down his back beneath his thin robes. Most of the berries and flowers he is gathering are small and delicate; they need to be handled carefully, and Sirius uses a deft and gentle movement of his fingers to pluck them; but they’re all so very ripe that he can taste them wafting up from the basket over his arm… He straightens and stands for a moment, surveying the yard; his body feels older, and it takes a moment for his back to shed its stiffness; but as he turns and walks back toward a small, white cottage overgrown with climbing green vines, there is a spring in his step that belies his years. 

This is not the lonely and cruel onset of age, with its withering memories and gaping emptiness, which tormented him all those months in Grimmauld Place. This is nature taking its course; he has made his peace with it. As he steps through the back door and kicks off his boots he finds the source of that peace: he can see Remus down the hall, making tea at the kitchen counter. His robes are clean and free of patches, and though there are more lines on his face, the new creases seem to be in the right places, giving his face a soft and lived-in look, as though from laughter and smiling and parent-teacher conferences, rather than pain and heartbreak. 

As Sirius rounds the corner into the kitchen and sets the basket on the counter Remus smiles, first at the freshly cut flowers and fruit, and then up at Sirius, jerking his head towards the table beyond him, further into the kitchen. Sirius follows his gaze and sees a young man in work robes and a tie sitting at the table, straight-backed and slim, with the confident bearing of an athlete. The young man spots Sirius and grins up at him through an unruly fringe of black hair, his bright green eyes twinkling and his glasses glinting in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Sirius returns the grin, his heart swelling fit to burst, and he takes several quick strides to close the distance to the table. 

Just at that moment, Remus turns around with the tea and moves closer to set it down. Sirius wraps an arm around him and holds him close, kissing him gently, then reaches out to grip the young man’s shoulder tightly in his other hand.

***

When he woke up it was dark outside, and he could see that a gentle snow had begun to fall outside the window, glinting in the streetlamps. Remus was still sleeping, breathing slowly, evenly. As he lay there, still basking in the glow of his fading dream, Sirius became gradually aware of the rise and fall of his own chest – and reflected that he was breathing more easily, and his heart thumping more steadily, than it had in… well, in fifteen years. 

Of course, terrible things were still afoot: Voldemort was at large; Harry was still in danger; Snape was still a slimy git. He would still be cooped up in Grimmauld Place ‘til who knew when. But none of this had any effect on the grin he had woken up wearing. He had Remus in his arms, and they were a family again; finally; like they always should have been. The sharp edge of loneliness with which he had lived for so long, the feelings of uselessness and desperation, had dissipated at long last – and he felt indescribably light without them. 

He would fight. For Remus, for Harry, for countless other families. Not because it was easier and more satisfying than other kinds of goodness. Because it was necessary. And when it wasn’t necessary any more – and for the first time in a long time, Sirius was starting to believe in such a possibility, in such a time – he wouldn’t go looking for more. He would let go of his anger, loosen his clenched fists. Because love wasn’t weakness – and what Peter did, he never did for love. 

Tightening his arms around Remus, he glanced around them for the first time, and registered with a low chuckle that they seemed to have ended up in Ron’s bed. Watching Remus’s eyelids flutter gently, listening to the rhythm of his breathing and trying to match it with his own, Sirius relaxed, and drifted back into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.  
  


THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Think of this story between Sirius’s sullen Christmas and his joyful conversation with Lupin and Harry about Snape’s memory, and I will have accomplished what I set out to do – to give the reader, and of course Remus and Sirius themselves, closure and peace before Sirius is taken from us. I just wish I could somehow reach through the years and the pages and hand a copy to Harry himself; perhaps it would be of some comfort, however maudlin.
> 
> Props to the author of “Care and Feeding”, whose handle is now lost to the vagaries of the Internet, for the first usage I ever saw of the more intimate “Moonshine” from Marauder-era Sirius.
> 
> Further props to all of the amazing HP slash writers out there who have taught me the immense emotional value of this medium: Helen of “Close Enough”, Bussaiko of “The Maddest House”, and annesj of “Boiler Room” especially. While it’s true I proffer my own version here, at least of their first kiss, I have to mention that “Boiler Room” is definitely my very favourite R/S first time story.
> 
> Musical props to Four Star Mary’s “Pain” and Joshua Radin’s “Closer”, both of which were listened to incessantly during the writing of the most difficult parts of this story; and to Five for Fighting’s “100 Years”, which inspired the dream sequence.


End file.
